Naples dad, son, friend build a boat like no other

Naples native Barry Connor spent one meaningful teen summer getting his hands dirty, his brow sweaty and his mind educated to the essentials of construction by working with an awning company. Connor wanted his son, Jacob, to have that same experience.

He wanted the project to be a chance for the two of them to work together.

From left, Barry Connor, Mike Ballard, Jacob Connor, 15, and Craig Gaskins take their boat out on ...more

From left, Barry Connor, Mike Ballard, Jacob Connor, 15, and Craig Gaskins take their boat out on the Gulf of Mexico in Naples on Wednesday. June 14, 2017. Connor and his son Jacob built the boat as a project together with the help of Connor's business partner Gaskins and family friend and welder Ballard.

Dorothy Edwards/Naples Daily News

And, further, he wanted the project to yield something that would always remind them of that work and what they both would learn from it.

That inspiration has emerged as the EXO34, a pontoon boat like no other in Gulf Coast waters. Named for its length and the exoskeletal silver facade, it skims the Gulf as though it's glass. A rear diving platform lowered 18 inches makes returns from snorkeling and "snuba" diving nearly effortless. A Bluetooth sound system hip-rolls from Jimmy Buffett to reggae, and aircraft rivets in every metal wall announce: Sturdy stuff here.

'Let's do this'

But Jacob's summer learning experience turned out to be a lot longer than his father's. When the EXO34 eased into the water in February, it had been seven years in planning and building.

"Since I was 8, they were talking about it," Jacob, now 15, recalled. "One day dad came home and said, 'Let's do this,' and we started talking around the kitchen table."

Barry Connor and his longtime friend and business partner, Craig Gaskins, another Naples native, hatched the boat idea to accommodate both their families and a few friends for their favorite leisure: swimming, diving, fishing and lobster hunting in the Gulf.

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Connor remembers wanting a boat that gave them the sense of being protected on the water without the dark confinement of a cabin.

Gaskins wanted a multiple-use craft — "whether it's cruising, fishing or diving, it was important to us to achieve all three of those," he said. Gaskins has two younger children, and Connor has five, and on a great weekend there's a good chance they're all on the water together.

Jacob, who has been on the Barron Collier High School swim team and swims for T2 Aquatics, just "wanted it to be a good diving boat," he said.

The trio sat down and pooled all their wants. Lighted fish wells? Yes. Capped fishing line holders? Sure. Freshwater shower, available from a 150-gallon tank for salty returning swimmers? Definitely. With wives and four sisters among the two families, they wanted a decent bathroom, or head, and abundant storage for food and drink and comfortable seating.

A 260-quart cooler was installed. Every ladder step to the upper deck was lighted in neon blue. And fat-cushioned seating was installed everywhere.

"All the pontoons that are on the market now have the same rounded modular seats," Gaskins said. "It doesn't give you that true sexiness of a comfortable sofa."

Paper boats

After the trio had pored over freehand drawings, little paper maquettes of the boat-to-be materialized on the Connor kitchen table. The men, both Naples natives, own Connor and Gaskins Unlimited LLC, a construction services company. So they were accustomed to inspecting their design for details, down to using a self-leveling polyurethane underneath the boat's floor that would be easy on bare feet.

Connor also insisted that form be wedded to function: "We wanted something really, really sleek-looking, that had a European flair to it," he said. That meant a lot of welding, and when the time came for actually building the boat, Connor called on his own mentor, master welder Mike Ballard, for the painstaking joints that would require two to three hours to complete.

"It was a beautiful thing, not only to get Jake involved, but to go full circle with Mike, having him work with us," Connor said.

It was going to be a learning experience for Ballard, too: "I'd rebuilt more boats than I can count, but from the ground up? Never," he said.

Jacob learned to weld, too, creating some smaller joints. Part of his learning experience, he said, was getting some minor burns: "I got 'sunburnt' by the arc welder," he said.

Jacob Connor, 15, rides on his family's boat out on the Gulf of Mexico in Naples on Wednesday. June ...more

Jacob Connor, 15, rides on his family's boat out on the Gulf of Mexico in Naples on Wednesday. June 14, 2017. Connor and his father Barry built the boat as a project together with the help of Connor's business partner Craig Gaskins and family friend and welder Mike Ballard.

Dorothy Edwards/Naples Daily News

Because he was the most slender of the group, Jacob often found himself under the boat, snaking wires down a pole from one spot and back up another. An estimated 30,000 feet of wire attached all the lighting, the sound system and controls.

Some days, Jacob recalled, the conversation about finding the ends of the wires was a nearly single litany: "Do you see it?" "No."

"I think the biggest thing is patience when you're making something like this where every part is custom," Connor said.

"The biggest takeaway for me was that we really thought through the process of drafting and modeling and that helped a lot," Gaskins offered. "I'd say we got 95 percent of the hiccups, but there were still these little things we hadn't thought of."

One of them was how much the trailer, which also had to be custom built, would raise their craft — too high for 13-foot, 6-inch underpasses.

"We had to modify that trailer three times," Connor recalled.

'Destroyed'

When building of the EXO34 began in earnest, it consumed after-school evenings and full days on weekends — after Jacob had arisen for two-hour swim practices that started at 5:30 a.m.

"By the end of the day both me and my dad were destroyed," Jacob recalled. "We put in thousands of hours."

The expected christening month of August 2016 arrived. And departed.

"We could have rushed it. But we said no. We were going to finish it out and have it perfect for the following year," Gaskins said.

From left, Mike Ballard, Barry Connor, and Jacob Connor, 15, stand in the water as Craig Gaskins ...more

From left, Mike Ballard, Barry Connor, and Jacob Connor, 15, stand in the water as Craig Gaskins works on the Connor's boat out on the Gulf of Mexico in Naples on Wednesday. June 14, 2017. Connor and his son Jacob built the boat as a project together with the help of Connor's business partner Gaskins and family friend and welder Ballard.

Dorothy Edwards/Naples Daily News

And when their families finally clambered onto the boat in February, their first chore was to be testers for how it behaved under various occupancy loads. The 5,850-pound EXO34 was built to function, if necessary, on only one buoyant pontoon.

On a late spring day last week, the EXO34, powered by its outboard Yamaha 250 horsepower engine, undulated through Cocohatchee Bay on a short trip. It was just a taste of the sea, with Barry and Jacob Connor, Gaskins and Ballard letting the breeze ruffle everyone hair's and Gaskins demonstrating the pontoon's ability to float in 10 inches of water.

There are a few luxuries yet to be added: built-in seats on the upper deck, a light tarp roof that can shed rain and sun.

But the EXO34 has admirers everywhere the families go.

"The times we've been out on the water people followed us," Barry Connor said. "After we docked, one guy came up to us and said, 'This is the most amazing boat I've ever seen.'"

"You see a lot of people on the water, and they're elbowing each other and pointing at us," Gaskins said.

"They think it's 'Star Wars'," said Jacob, in a tone that suggests he will not ever forget this project. "People always do a second take."